JAMES COOK UNIVERSITY

EE3600 Practical 1
Transient Response Analysis
Karthikram Rajesh
29/8/2013

Transient Response Analysis

Aim
To understand the theory of first and second order systems transient response
and using Computer Aided Control Systems Design to analytically determine and
verify a systems transient response from a transfer function.
Method
The first question involved writing code in Matlab, to plot a general second order
transfer function with changing damping ratio, whilst the undamped natural
frequency and gain stayed constant. This was done by writing a for loop in
Matlab to ensure the program plots graphs for all the 6 different values that were
inputted. The plots showed both the s-plane location of the system poles as well
as time response graph, from this we were able to see the effects of varying the
damping ratio, these trends and results will be discussed later in this report.
For question 2 a few calculations needed to be performed before using Simulink
in Matlab to plot the obtained transfer function. To begin with a general transfer
function equation was given with one variable along with some criteria which
needed to be followed in order to obtain the right system response. To do this,
the formula for the damping ratio () was used and since the middle term in a
general second order transfer function is 2n we can calculate n which is
needed to find K since K = n2. Refer to Results/Discussion for the calculation
of the transfer function.
Results/Discussion
In Part one, we were asked to plot different system responses for 6 different
damping ratios (0, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, 1.0) whilst the gain and undamped natural
frequency (n) remained constant. To do these plots a simple Matlab code was
written with a for loop to ensure the code re-runs for all 6 damping rations, in
order to plot both the systems poles location on the s-plane as well as the
system time response. The code and the plots can be seen in appendix 1.
From the plots, we were able to gather some key performance criteria for any
system response such as rise time, settling time, % overshoot, and the damped
frequency of oscillation. The results found can be summarized by the table
below:
Dampin
g Ratio

System
Poles

Rise
Time
(secs)

%
Oversh
oot

Settling
Time
(secs)

0
0.1

0 2i
-0.2
1.99i
-0.6
1.9i
-1

N/A
0.556

N/A
72.9

0.664
0.824

0.3
0.5

N/A
19.2

Damped
frequency of
oscillation
(rad/s)
2
1.99

System
Response
Undamped
Underdamped

37.1

5.62

1.91

Underdamped

16.3

4.04

1.73

Underdamped

0.7
1.0

1.73i
-1.4 +
1.43i
-2 0i

1.07

4.6

2.99

1.43

Underdamped

1.68

2.92

Critically
damped

Table 1: Question 1 Results Summary

From the results obtained, we can identify a few trends as well as the comment
on the effect of varying the damping ratio.
The rise time of a system is the time it takes to get from 10% to 90% of the final
steady state value, this value increases due to the formula for a underdamped
2nd order system rise time being:

t r o=

tan 1
2
1
1 2

o in our task was set to be 2 rad/s, and thus as the damping ratio increases
the right hand side of the equation will increase due to the inverse tan function.
Even as the plots have less of a peak in them, the rise time increase due to the
fact that the final stead state value is becoming larger even though the system
takes less time to settle.
The relationship between the damping ratio and settling time can be seen
through the equation

T s=

4
n

, as the damping ratio increases the

denominator will increase thus decreasing the overall result that the equation
gives. Also as the damping ratio increases the system response changes from
undamped to critically damped, and from the plots obtained we can see the
curve becomes more exponential rather than sinusoidal, this change is shown
through the value for the % overshoot decreasing.
( / 1 )
100 , and it
The % overshoot is established according to the equation e
2

decreases due the fact that the power of the exponential becomes less negative.
As a general trend the %OS should decrease exponentially as the damping ratio
increases and this can be seen through the plots as we increase the damping
ratio the plots become less sinusoidal and more of a smooth curve.
The damping frequency of oscillation can be seen decreasing due to the general
equation being

n 1 2

since the natural frequency is constant in our case;

the square root is going to be approaching 0 as the damping ratio increases.

Thus decreasing the damping frequency of oscillation will decrease. The damping
frequency is also the imaginary part of the system poles, and as the poles
approach the real axis the imaginary section decreases and along with the
damping frequency.
The damping ratio affects the system by changing its response in the time
domain, when the ratio is 0 the system produces two poles at j n and hence

the system response is said to be undamped which is generally characterized by

the equation A + B cos ( t + ) , when plotted the graph looks like:

When the damping ratio is in the range of 0 < < 1 the system produces a
characteristic underdamped response with poles at d jd and can be graphed
with a general equation of

+B e t cos (d t )
d

. The position of the first peak

becomes further away from the origin of the graph, as the system response
becomes less sinusoidal and more of a smooth curve with 0 settling time.

When the damping ratio is equal to 1, the system shows a critically damped
response with poles at - on the real axis on an s-plane. The graph gradually
increases with no overshoot and eventually comes to a steady state point. This
t

type of graph can be generally characterized by the equation A + B e

+Ct et .

From theoretically information above,

we are able to see that the general
trends identified in our plots were
infact true. With the systems response changing from undamped when = 0, to
underdamped when is between 0.1 and 0.7, and eventually a critically damped
response when =1. The poles also follow the general format and trend that go
along with the different damping ratios. When the system response is
underdamped, we can see the height of the peaks decreasing in size due to the
percent overshoot decreasing.
To solve for the variable in the transfer function, it was first compared to the
general form of a 2nd order transfer function:

2n
K
2
s 2+16 s+ K
s +2 n s + 2n
Thus K = n2
We were given certain criteria in order to find the right system response.

% OS of not more than 4.4%

Settling time of not more than 1.43 secs.

In order to solve for n we needed to find the damping ratio, and this could be
done through:

%OS
)
100
=
OS
2 +ln 2 (
)
100
ln (

In this case the % OS = 4.4 %, therefore:

ln ( 0.044 )

2 +ln2 ( 0.044 )

0.704

Solving for n

2 n =16

n=11.35 rad / s

Therefore the transfer function is:

G ( s )=

11.352
128.82
2
2
2
s +16 s+11.35
s +16 s+128.82

We can calculate the settling time which has to be less than 1.43 seconds

T s=

4
n

0.531 seconds

To justify the model, Matlab was used to identify key characteristics to see
whether the criteria given were followed. The same code that was used in part 1
was re-used with some minor adjustments, the code was as follows:

The main
difference in
the coding is
the missing for
loop it was not
needed in this
scenario as we
were only
plotting 1
transfer
function, in the time domain and s-plane. The plots that were generated are
shown below:

The key characteristics in the plots above can be summarized by the table below.
Damping
Ratio
0.704

%
Overshoot
4.4

Poles
-7.998.06i

Settling
Time
0.531 secs

Rise Time
0.219 secs

System
Response
Underdamped

Finally after all the code was programmed, Simulink was used to verify the
design. It involved using 3 main elements which modeled the design of the
transfer function.

Step Function
Transfer Fcn the input for this block was G(s)
Scope used to see the final plot

The model looked something like the one shown below:

The plot generated by the scope function, was as follows:

The plot
above forms the kind of curve as the one produced for Matlab, thus we can
justifiably say that our system was infact correct in designing the particular
transfer function.
Conclusion
The aim of this practical was to reinforce the theory of first and second order
systems transient response. This was done through the use of analytical software
called Matlab, which was used plot systems different response through varying
damping ratio. From the information gathered, the response changes from
undamped to underdamped and eventually critically damped as the damping
ratio neared the value of 1. In conclusion, the determination of a system
transient response in various scenarios was done successfully through the use of
computer aided control systems design tools.

Appendix
The code and the plots for the first task were as follows:
Code:

Damping Ratio = 0

Damping ratio = 0.1

Damping ratio = 0.3

Damping ratio = 0.5

Damping Ratio = 0.7

Damping Ratio = 1